Why So Many Pastors Are Surrounded By People and Still Profoundly Alone
In 1938, Harvard started a study that has never stopped running. It has followed individual lives for almost a century, asking one question across generations: what actually makes a human life go well? The answer, captured in the book The Good Life, is not income, status, or career trajectory. It is the quality of your relationships. That single factor predicts happiness more reliably than any other variable the researchers have ever measured.
For pastors, this finding cuts in a particular direction. The job demands a kind of relational fluency that almost no other profession asks for. Pastors are immersed in people all week. And yet most pastors will tell you, if they trust you enough, that they are lonely.
Barry Rodriguez, lead pastor at Grace Church in Noblesville, names it bluntly on this week’s episode of The Vitality Journey Podcast: “I am struggling to even desire real relationships with other people because I’ve been hurt so many times, and friends have left. So I’m starting to isolate myself.”
His father Dave Rodriguez, with 40 years in pastoral ministry behind him, offers the framework that explains why.
Real Relationships vs Deal Relationships
There are two kinds of relationships in a pastor’s life, and most pastors do not distinguish between them until it is too late.
Real relationships survive your title. They exist because you exist. The friendship would continue if you changed jobs, moved cities, or left the ministry tomorrow.
Deal relationships are functionally real but structurally tied to your role. The person knows you because you are their pastor. Take away the role and the relationship goes with it.
Dave only learned the proportion when he stepped away from the lead pastor seat in 2020. “All of a sudden I had a realization of just how many relationships I had as a pastor were deal. That was a shock. I think I knew it all along, but I didn’t really process it till then.”
This is the quiet math of pastoral life. The job consumes most of the relational bandwidth a human being has. The relationships it generates are largely the kind that disappear with the job. Real relationships, the ones the Harvard study says will determine your happiness, are at a premium.
“I Have Lost More Friends Than Most People Ever Will Have”
That sentence belongs to Dave, and it lands hard.
Pastors do not just absorb the everyday turnover of congregational life. They lose friends in categories. There are people who move to Idaho. There are families who decide another church is a better fit for their kids. There are members who declare they are “not getting fed” and walk away. And there are people who leave swinging, who go out trying to take other relationships with them.
Each category produces a kind of grief most people will never carry, because most people are not building a life around a community that has the structural permission to dissolve and reconstitute itself every Sunday.
Barry’s Countermeasure: Dungeons and Dragons
The solution sounds almost absurd on the surface, but it is precisely the right shape.
Barry now runs a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. He is the Dungeon Master. The guys at the table started as acquaintances. They are becoming his friends. None of them came to him because he is a pastor. None of the friendship is conditional on the church performing well, the sermon landing, or the leadership decision being popular. It is a real friendship in the precise definition above.
The point is not D&D. The point is that the only reliable way for a pastor to build real friendships is to leave the building. To put time on the calendar, with people who do not need anything from the title, and to keep showing up.
“Babies Get Fed.”
The most-quoted line of the segment is also the most honest one. When congregants complain that they are no longer getting fed, Barry has heard it enough times to offer a public rebuttal: “You know who gets fed? Babies. Babies get fed. You got to start feeding yourself, person, whoever you are.”
This is not a pastoral failure to be hospitable. It is a pastoral refusal to participate in a relationship structure that asks the pastor to be a constant emotional vending machine. If you have been a Christian for more than a few years and you are still expecting your pastor to spoon-feed you, the relationship has stopped being mutual. It has become a deal relationship in the most extractive sense of the term.
What This Means For Pastors
Build one real-relationship channel outside the church. A standing group, a hobby, a workout partner, a Dungeon Master gig. Same people, on the calendar, no church connection. Then keep it.
What This Means For Everyone Else
If you love a pastor, do one thing this week. Ask them how they are actually doing. Then listen. Do not problem-solve. Do not theologize. Listen. The Harvard study says you cannot be happy without real relationships. Pastors are not the exception. They are the population most at risk.
Watch the full conversation on The Vitality Journey Podcast: https://www.destiny-works.com/the-vitality-journey/
Pastors: Dave’s new six-month mentoring program, The Pastor’s Journey, is built for exactly this conversation. Email dave@destiny-works.com to learn more.
Full Transcript
Barry: I realized that recently I was kind of a little low on relationality. This is a whole other can of worms for the conversation, but I’ve noticed that I am struggling to even desire real relationships with other people because I’ve been hurt so many times, and friends have left. So I’m starting to isolate myself.
But I know that’s not what I need to do. It is a thing. So I found a new fun avenue to have to build some new friendships, which is Dungeons and Dragons. I have become a Dungeon Master.
Dave: Barry started, Barry things, of course.
Barry: I’m having a ball, and I’m getting to know these new guys that were just kind of acquaintances, and now they’re becoming my friends. I’m working on it, but it takes so much intentionality, because to be completely honest, if I was just doing what I want to do, I would curl up into a hole and come out to be a pastor and then go right back into my hole these days.
Dave: I found myself there numerous times.
Let me circle back to the relational thing. Let me give you a perspective. I’ve discovered, we’ve been talking on this podcast, I’ve brought it up several times, the Harvard study, the longitudinal study on happiness, encapsulated in a book called The Good Life. So since 1938, they’ve been studying what brings happiness to people. What they’ve discovered, as they looked at all these families for this many years, is that there is one element that is absolutely crucial to happiness the older you get, and that is relationship. It is the number one factor.
Relationships are, to put it mildly, problematic for pastors. Here’s what I discovered. You know the difference between real relationships and deal relationships. When I stepped away, I won’t say retired, but when I stepped away in 2020, all of a sudden I had a realization of just how many relationships I had as a pastor were deal. In other words, based on who I was, or my title. That was a shock. I think I knew it all along, but I didn’t really process it till then. Real relationships are at a premium for a pastor.
Can you react to that? Does that sound right to you?
Barry: Yeah, it totally does. And it makes sense, in a very highly relational job, that you don’t often have the energy and the stamina to invest in the real relationships, because you are having to spend yourself out with the deal relationships so often.
Then there’s the trauma of losing friendships. You’ve said, and maybe you could speak to this, but you’ve frequently said that you’ve, because of your role as a pastor, you’ve lost more friends than most people will ever make.
Dave: That’s exactly right. I have lost more friends than most people ever will have.
Barry: Can you explain that a little bit? What do you mean when you say you’ve lost friends?
Dave: Well, first there’s the neutral. Like when you invest your life in somebody, and then all of a sudden they come to you in tears and say, we have to move to Idaho.
Barry: Sad but fine.
Dave: There are a lot of those. Then the next one is people saying, you know, we’ve loved being here, but our kids are really appreciating this other church more, so we’re going to go there. You’re like, oh, all right. So, okay, goodbye. Then there are those who say, you’re not feeding me anymore. I’m not getting fed.
Barry: That’s the big church line. Can I rant about that for a second? Everybody rants about it, but, my goodness. I’m not getting fed. You know who gets fed? Babies. Babies get fed. You got to start feeding yourself, person, whoever you are.